Keeper of the Heart

by Johanna Lindsey

  “She’s going to be horrified when she finds out all those men are competing for her,” Tedra said quietly now.

  “Why should she be? Never did it bother her when all my warriors lusted after her.”

  “Maybe because she never noticed.”

  “How could she not? It was so bad before she left that we could never get a servant after dark whenever she had been around them.”

  Tedra hid her grin against his chest. His grumbling tone was nothing compared to his annoyance at such times, and those times had been many. Tedra had felt nothing but pride and a degree of amusement that so many men wanted her daughter, so much so that each of them was compelled to seek out a Darasha female after merely being in Shanelle’s presence.

  She was suddenly understanding Challen’s reason for these competitions a little better. Too many of his own warriors had asked for Shanelle, and although he might have preferred she go to a warrior he knew well, Tedra also knew he had decided he couldn’t play favorites in giving her to one of them. If only there hadn’t been so many offers ...

  “Do you mean to tell her?” Challen asked.

  “And ruin her homecoming? She’ll find out soon enough when the competitions are over and she has to pick one of the finalists—oh, Stars!” Tedra gasped with the realization. “You’re going to give her away in just a few days, aren’t you? Challen, I only just got her back! Couldn’t you have waited?”

  “Too long has this been delayed.”

  “So I’m to lose her already?” she whispered forlornly.

  “And where do you think she will go?” he chided. “These are Kan-is-Tran warriors who will ask for her. She will not be taken so far that you cannot visit her as often as you wish.”

  She was annoyed enough to remind him, “Have you forgotten there are visitors also competing?”

  “You were the one who insisted visitors be allowed to participate when they began asking to do so.” And they had asked because Rampon at the Visitor’s Center had somehow found out the true reason for the competitions and the word had spread from there to all the ambassadors, and from them to their home planets. “In fairness did I allow it,” he added, “yet have I no intention of choosing a visitor for my daughter.”

  “Not even that High King Jorran who is so confident he can beat the champion of all the warriors?”

  “Especially not that condescending High King. Sooner would I—”

  What he would sooner do was interrupted by the light rap on the door. “Mother, are you there?”

  Tedra pushed herself out of Challen’s arms and started toward the door even as she called out, “Come on in, baby.” But when Shanelle did, Tedra was glad she was blocking her from Challen’s view, and put her arms around her to whisper urgently, “Hide your face in my shoulder and keep it there. If your father sees those swollen lips, he’s going to kill whoever got them that way.” To Challen she said, “How about taking off for a while, babe? I’d like a private mother-daughter chat before dinner.”

  “So I am to be kicked out of my own chamber?”

  “Humor me and I might play challenge loser tonight.”

  He laughed and whacked her bottom on his way out the door. As soon as the door had closed, Tedra hugged Shanelle happily.

  “So it’s happened? You found the man you want?”

  “Mother... don’t... squeeze!” Shanelle gasped out.

  Tedra released her immediately. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” And with even more alarm and the beginnings of a new anger, she demanded, “Are those bruises on your arms?”

  “I offered to take her right into a meditech,” Martha answered before Shanelle could, “but she wants to enjoy suffering for a while.”

  “What in the farden hell happened?”

  Martha turned on one of her driest tones. “To hear her tell it, she got run over by a solidite paver.”

  “So let her tell it,” Tedra snapped. “Shani? Did someone beat you, for Stars’ sake?”

  “No—it just feels like it.” Shanelle sighed and led her mother to the backless couches in the center of the large room as she continued. “I really thought this was it, mother. The man was absolutely gorgeous. Once I’d seen him, I couldn’t think about anything else. And he made me feel so— so—”

  “He knocked her socks off,” Martha supplied with a chuckle.

  With a frown Shanelle turned the computer link off, while with the same frown Tedra took the unit and set it on the large square table that the couches surrounded. “I’ll talk to you later,” Tedra told the computer, her tone warning that she was presently blaming Martha for whatever had happened. And to Shanelle, “So if everything seemed right, what went wrong?”

  “Everything. But in the beginning, nothing. He seemed so perfect, even if he was taller than I would have liked. That didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except what he was making me feel. And he felt it, too. He came right to me. And, Stars, he was even ready to fight Corth for me.”

  “To fight Corth?” Tedra said incredulously, but then with dismayed understanding, “We’re not talking about a warrior, are we?”

  Shanelle lowered her eyes. “No—but he’s as big as one, nearly as big as father. And he acts like one more than he doesn’t—except for one major difference. He’s emotional—possessive, jealous, passionate—too passionate, actually, and that’s where everything went wrong. He didn’t have much control of his passion to begin with, but when we were about to join, he—he lost it completely. He wasn’t aware he was doing it, but his arms just about crushed me, and when he breached me, it hurt so bad I fainted.”

  “Oh, baby.” Tedra’s sympathy poured out, her arms going around Shanelle very carefully. “You’ve always had a low tolerance for pain. The slightest little scrape or bang as a child and you’d be screaming your head off.”

  Shanelle’s expression turned wry. “I’d like to think I can take a scrape or bang these days, mother. I didn’t will myself to faint. This was pain of an unacceptable level.”

  “But a breaching is painful. I know you kept your innocence intact for your father’s sake so your lifemate could have it, but it looks like you should have visited a meditech instead.”

  “It’s a moot point now.”

  “Is it?” Tedra sighed. “All right, so we’ll class it as one of the most horrible breachings on record. As long as the man made up for it afterward, then—”

  “There was no afterward. When I woke up, I just wanted out of there.”

  “Wait a minute.” Tedra was outraged. “Are you saying you got no pleasure to make up for the pain? That’s indecent! I’ll—”

  “Mother—”

  “—crucify that bastard when I see him! He should have insisted—”

  “Mother! I didn’t want him to touch me again.”

  “But you needed to be shown it’s not all pain, and who better to show you than the man you picked yourself?”

  “You’re not listening, mother. With him it was all pain—or at least too much pain. He was too rough even before he lost control. And he did insist we continue the joining. In fact, he wasn’t going to let me leave until we did. I had to ask Martha to change his mind.”

  “I’ll bet he just loved that.”

  “Sure he did, enough to swear he was going to destroy Martha first chance he gets.”

  Tedra grinned. “I’ll bet she just loved hearing that.” The audiovisual console in Tedra’s dressing room chimed right then, so she added, “I’m not answering that, Martha. I told you I’d talk to you later.”

  “Maybe it’s not her,” Shanelle suggested.

  “Of course it is. It drives her crazy that she can’t get around on this planet like she could on Kystran—and does on the Rover, popping into any audio console and computer when she wants. If her main housing hadn’t been turned off when she left to get you, she’d be yelling at us right now, instead of dialing for permission to speak.”

  Proof was the end of the chiming coming from the dressing room. All of Ted
ra’s advanced machines were stored in there, away from Challen’s sight. The room was so crowded with the wonders of other worlds that there’d been no room to add Brock’s housing when he joined the family. So he was kept in another room—otherwise Martha would have borrowed his console to have her say.

  “I think I’ll visit a meditech after all,” Shanelle said with a grimace as she started to get up.

  Tedra’s hand detained her. “Sit down. I didn’t mean to get off the subject, but I was getting too close to tears for comfort. This wasn’t supposed to happen to you. It shouldn’t have. And maybe we ought to let your father have a good look at you after all. Your young man needs some punishing for what he put you through, and if Challen doesn’t do it, then I’ll have to.”

  Shanelle shook her head. “I don’t want him punished for something he did unintentionally. He could use a lesson or two in bedroom manners, for the benefit of the next woman ... he ...”

  Tedra lifted a brow at the way her words trailed off. “So it bothers you, the idea of him with other women?”

  “No, why should it?”

  “Because you picked him, Shani. Because a part of you is already maintaining that he’s yours.”

  “Well, that part will just have to catch up to the rest that says I’m not interested anymore,” Shanelle replied stiffly.

  “Yes, you are. You’re just disappointed that he’s not as perfect as you’d like him to be. I’m disappointed that he’s not a warrior. But these are difficulties that can be worked out.”

  “Mother, you still aren’t listening to me,” Shanelle said in exasperation.

  “Maybe because I know you. And maybe because even though I’ve tried to minimalize your father’s influence on your ideas about sex-sharing, you really do share his views. You want only one man. That’s why you’ve waited this long, trying to find the right one. And this is the right one, or you wouldn’t have been willing to share sex with him the moment you met him. You went with him with every intention of opening your heart to him, of spending the rest of your life with him.”

  “That’s absolutely true, but instincts can go awry, and hopes and intentions don’t always hold up to reality. I wish it had worked out, mother. I wanted it to so badly. But the plain fact is, the man is dangerous. You can’t imagine what it was like to be held by someone just as strong as father, but without his gentleness—and he didn’t even know he was hurting me. That’s what frightens me the most, and I’m not going through that again.”

  “But, Shani—”

  “Look at me, mother,” Shanelle cut in impatiently this time. “Do I look like I’m not serious? I have the bruises to prove I am, and if they’re already showing up on my arms from my just being drawn forward for a kiss, then let’s see what the rest looks like by now.” She whipped her blouse off—then wished to Stars she hadn’t.

  She hadn’t expected quite such a dramatic showing, but she should have. Her skin did bruise easily. Shades of red, violet, and soon-to-be-black liberally covered her upper torso, the darkest patches spreading out from the sides, where she’d been squeezed too tightly. The lighter marks, which were around her breasts and lower waist, probably wouldn’t hurt to the touch now, but had yet to fade.

  Shanelle blushed in embarrassment, because none of it felt quite as bad as it looked. But her mother had turned ashen and then crimson with rage. And Tedra didn’t have much more to say, merely, “The man dies!”

  Chapter 12

  It took a while to get Tedra out of the emotional level she’d slipped into. Shanelle found it necessary to totally reverse her stand, reminding her mother of how easy she was to bruise, insisting that she wasn’t badly hurt, just sore.

  Tedra had still done some insisting of her own. “I’m going to take him apart piece by piece, but first I’ll give him his wish and let him destroy Martha. She should have Transferred you away from him at the first indication of pain!”

  “It wasn’t all pain,” Shanelle had whispered.

  “What was that?”

  “I said it wasn’t all pain. Martha can’t be blamed for not being able to tell what I was actually feeling, when at least half of it was—nice.”

  She’d also had to repeatedly point out that the damage was only the temporary kind and would be eliminated altogether with a few minutes in a meditech, which she’d also had to promise would be done immediately.

  She’d left her mother not quite back to seeing Falon as a future member of the family, but not quite so eager to dissect him, either. “I suppose I should hear the monster’s side of it first,” she allowed.

  Shanelle sincerely hoped her mother never got an opportunity to meet Falon at all. For two such volatile personalities to clash, it didn’t bear thinking about. Besides, nothing could come of their meeting but more difficulties. Shanelle had made up her mind about Falon. She didn’t like admitting it, but she was basically a coward, especially where pain was concerned. And although Falon might have got his emotions in hand just before she left him, she wasn’t going to put herself in a position to experience again what it was like when he didn’t.

  An hour later, having rid herself of all bruises and whatever internal injuries she had sustained— she didn’t want to know and so hadn’t asked the meditech for a report—she was beginning to experience a little anger of her own, and all of it for the man who had dashed her hopes so badly. He had no business being so careless with the kind of strength he possessed. Someone should have taught him better—he should have taught himself better.

  She couldn’t begin to imagine the kind of women he must be used to, women who didn’t mind such rough handling. Stars, they must be as big and strong as he was. And where did he come from that he was so like a warrior except in the one way that would have kept her from being afraid of his strength—a warrior’s calm control? Of course, if he was a warrior, that would open up another whole avenue of fears, some worse than anticipated pain. And she’d asked him outright where he was from at least once. Why hadn’t he answered instead of asking if it mattered?

  As if it mattered now. It didn’t, other than to appease her curiosity about him. And despite her resolve to never see him again, she was still curious, frustratingly so, which merely added to her anger. She shouldn’t even be thinking about him anymore, yet she couldn’t get him out of her mind.

  Dressed now in the traditional chauri that all Kan-is-Tran women wore, Shanelle felt more like she was finally home. She had these sheer, scarf-like outfits in every conceivable color, but she’d picked plain white for tonight to honor her father and to appease his earlier annoyance at her visitor’s outfit. Depending on how the scarves were draped, they could be blatantly provocative or demurely feminine. Shanelle had never tried to be provocative and doubted she ever would. On her the chauri was firmly belted to keep the upper scarves covering just what they should. And the scarves of all her skirts were joined well below the hip, so the free-floating sections never parted higher than mid-thigh.

  To add color to her outfit, the white belt and sandals were embedded with tobraz, the light blue gems mined in the north countries. The same gems circled her throat and dangled from her ears and both wrists. Her hair she left flowing down her back as her father preferred to see it, though she had a hair-styler that could have arranged it in any intricate manner she wanted in just a matter of moments.

  She was ready to join her family for the evening meal, yet she hesitated before the mirrored wall in her dressing room, staring at the image reflected there. But try as she might, she couldn’t see any difference in herself to account for what she had experienced that day. There was a little added color in her cheeks due to her continued agitation, but that was all. So what had she expected? It wasn’t as if it had been the glowingly wonderful experience she had assumed it would be that might have put happy sparkles in her eyes. And the meditech had taken away all the physical evidence. Just because she felt so different inside ...

  She sighed in disgust and left her dressing room, ev
en more irritated than she had been, and that would never do. She had to calm down before she joined her parents. The last thing she needed was to have her feelings set her mother off again, this time with her father there to witness it and demand explanations.

  She circled her room slowly for a few minutes, taking deep breaths, letting the familiar furnishings soothe her. Her collection of moonstones, the only adjustibed in the palace, the chair Dalden broke every time he sat down in it, always making her laugh, which was why she kept having it repaired, and why he kept testing it. She hadn’t seen her brother yet, nor had her pet fembair been by to greet her, but she’d see them both before the day was finished, she was sure.

  She was safe here, protected. Falon might have threatened to find her, but he wouldn’t. Not here. And she would stay away from the competitions. Corth could escort her friends back to the park tomorrow if they wanted to go, but she’d find an excuse not to join them.

  There, she felt better already. She hadn’t realized she’d been worried about running into Falon again, but she must have been.

  With a last deep breath, she left her room, smiled at the servant passing by her door, then stopped dead, seeing the four men who followed the servant. Falon Van’yer was one of them. He stopped, too, as surprised as she was. His three friends turned back to inquire what was keeping him.

  Shanelle took that opportunity to slip back into her room. Her heart was pounding frantically. She couldn’t imagine what he was doing in the palace, let alone coming down the hallway from the guest wing. If only she’d waited just a few more seconds before leaving. And, Stars, there was no lock on her door. There were no locks on any doors in the palace because no one would dare enter where he wasn’t welcome.